Carmelo in OKC w/ Russ and Paul GeorgeWade to the Cavs w/ D-Rose and LebronWarriors still the heavy favorites to repeat and make it 3 in 4 years. CP3 goes to Houston w/ Harden. Kyrie to the Celtics Twolves get Jimmy Butler to go w/ KAT and Wiggins.

I'm sure I missed a few but it looks like he Warriors in the WC w/ the Thunder, Rockets, and Spurs playing for the right to be WCF participants. Cavs and Celtics in the East.

Everyone's hyped up about the Rockets and Thunder, but I don't get it.

How will CP3 and Harden work together? I don't see that working out well.

How will Westbrook, Melo and PG13 co-exist? Westbrook had a record-high usage rate last season. Now he's got an ultra-chucker in Melo and an All-Star in George. Let's not forget, Westbrook drove Durant out of town. This is a trainwreck waiting to happen.

In the East, I don't see the Cavs as any better than they were last year. They're old. Really old. Plus Rose & Wade have been injury-prone.

The Thunder might have the worst top to bottom roster with a "Big 3" I can remember. Their next best player is Steven Adams and after that it's an even bigger drop off. Tbh I don't think they win many more games than they did last year and they won't have all the historic stats to make it as exciting.

I don't see the Cavs being any better either. Wade, Lebron, D-Rose are all poor 3pt shooter in what has become a 3pt league. I don't think it's possible to beat GS in a best of 7 if you can't shoot the 3pt shot well. They simply cover any weaknesses with being able to out shoot their opponents.

Assuming the Cavs are healthy for the playoffs they should get the Finals again. Kyrie is great, but that team is going to exposed on the perimeter defensively with Kyrie and Hayward and the Cavs already showed that they can dominate the glass vs them.

The West is deep and will be fun to watch. But barring injury it's the Warriors coasting to another ring just like last season. It's just a matter of how many records they break along the way.

The Cavs are mildly better right now than last year, they're deeper but they downgraded at PG. I know Thomas had some epic stats last year, but that was as the primary ball handler and playmaker in Boston's offense. He's in a new role and new offense and I don't think he will be as dominate offensively to make up for the fact that he's too small to guard Curry in the Finals. That was an underrated aspect Kyrie brought to the last few Finals, he made Steph work for his points and had him straight shut down a few times.

I just hope the East becomes a bit more open the next few seasons. The last time a LeBron James led team didn't win the East was 2010, I respect and admire the man's dominance but I look forward to some new rivalries and stories in the East.

I feel the same way. As a Magic fan it's beyond frustrating to know that little to nothing will ever come of this rebuild until LeBron either gets out of the east entirely or retires. It's literally a waiting game. The Super Team madness doesn't help matters either. If you're a star you gravitate towards all the others while the other 25 teams are just kind of there.

Last edited by Swashy on Tue Sep 26, 2017 7:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Swashy wrote:I feel the same way. As a Magic fan it's beyond frustrating to know that little to nothing will ever come of this rebuild until LeBron either gets out of the east entirely or retires. It's literally a waiting game. The Super Team madness doesn't help matters either. If you're a star you gravitate towards all the others while the other 25 teams are just kind of there.

Our management has just been incompetent for a good decade now. I was really hoping to see the new FO blow up the team this offseason but we got the same group with a few new bench players. This might be my least anticipated season of Magic basketball ever. We made a change in the people running the show, but the product doesn't look much different at all. While they deserve some time and patience, it's a bit frustrating as a fan already having to deal with being patient with the previous GM.

It really does suck. The worst part of it is that Vogel is actually a decent coach but the team has no freaking identity at all and the lineup does not have HIS kind of players. Having a lineup with guys like Gordon, Payton and Fournier is like giving a nice looking Corvette to a guy who drives diesel powered trucks. If those Pacers teams he coached didn't force you into low percentage shots every time you had the ball because they took every inch of space then they'd keep themselves in the game by out-rebounding you on every other missed shot be it their own or yours creating extra opportunities for themselves. They were the biggest pain in the ass in the NBA to play against. That's not to say the Magic are not talented, but mother of God every time I turn on the TV I know for a fact these guys are gonna give up 100 points and if we win it's gonna be because we scored 101.

To your point I agree. Something needs to happen. There's a few options. Blow it up and take a few years to build Indy 2.0 and see if we can make it to the top of the East by shutting it down. This route has my full support because the East has a few good teams but they're not unstoppable. Even the Cavs should be slowed down by the time we are ready to contend. It's frustrating but I'm willing to wait for results. Considering that teams like the GSW, SAS, HOU and OKC are waiting for us in any potential NBA Finals for the next several years we better be damn well ready to stop it. As far as I'm concerned... no one on our roster should be safe if this is the route we go.

Or we can keep who we've got and slowly add some more defensively oriented players and build through the draft so we can have a balanced team like we did in the late 2000's. Personally I take balance over anything and feel this is a far better approach but we all know damn well it's never... EVER gonna happen unless we land a game changer on both sides of the ball in the draft and God knows Oladipo wasn't the answer when we drafted #2 overall. I personally think this is a better plan but we've already been screwing this up for years now and I think this plan also has a smaller chance of actually succeeding.

Either way we need to buy in somehow. This team is going nowhere fast. If we finish .500 then Vogel deserves to win coach of the year

For one, I don't know why Nikola Vucevic is still here. He had some fool's gold rebounding numbers early on but has settled in as a mediocre big man whose main asset is mid range jumpers. The team could've traded him a few years ago when he had value but instead tried to build around him and now we probably would be lucky to get a halfway decent role player for him. Plus, after seeing his media day interview he seems to have a defeatist attitude about the season already and he just needs to be removed from the locker room. If we are going to build a new winning culture we need to purge the locker room of the guys who brought the losing culture. This team has been way too committed to Elfrid Payton too that it's laughable. Payton is literally the ideal backup PG, but the morons running this team keep trying to convince the fans he's the PG of the future. He's not horrible at all, but he's not really good at anything either. He's a guy you want coming off the bench, we could've gotten an exciting PG of the future in Dennis Smith, but we chose to go with the athletic freak development prospect...again. There needs to be changes on the floor because this organization is losing the city and fans fast which is sad considering how on board everyone was with the team and Amway Center.

Miller4Prez64 wrote:The Cavs are mildly better right now than last year, they're deeper but they downgraded at PG. I know Thomas had some epic stats last year, but that was as the primary ball handler and playmaker in Boston's offense. He's in a new role and new offense and I don't think he will be as dominate offensively to make up for the fact that he's too small to guard Curry in the Finals. That was an underrated aspect Kyrie brought to the last few Finals, he made Steph work for his points and had him straight shut down a few times.

I just hope the East becomes a bit more open the next few seasons. The last time a LeBron James led team didn't win the East was 2010, I respect and admire the man's dominance but I look forward to some new rivalries and stories in the East.

The EAST will be exciting in a couple of years with teams like the 76ers and BUCKS. I really believe the Greek Freak will be the best player in the league in a couple of years once LeBeon leaves and the Warriors decline.

Miller4Prez64 wrote:The Cavs are mildly better right now than last year, they're deeper but they downgraded at PG. I know Thomas had some epic stats last year, but that was as the primary ball handler and playmaker in Boston's offense. He's in a new role and new offense and I don't think he will be as dominate offensively to make up for the fact that he's too small to guard Curry in the Finals. That was an underrated aspect Kyrie brought to the last few Finals, he made Steph work for his points and had him straight shut down a few times.

I just hope the East becomes a bit more open the next few seasons. The last time a LeBron James led team didn't win the East was 2010, I respect and admire the man's dominance but I look forward to some new rivalries and stories in the East.

The EAST will be exciting in a couple of years with teams like the 76ers and BUCKS. I really believe the Greek Freak will be the best player in the league in a couple of years once LeBeon leaves and the Warriors decline.

NBA should push back the start of their season. Why start when MLB playoffs and Football are dominating the sports landscape? Plus Hockey also.

June-July are the dog days for sports, NBA would be better served to start in Nov-Dec after baseball is over and College Football regular season is wrapping up. Then we could go from Hockey playoffs ending to NBA playoffs beginning. Once the NBA is over it's time for NFL teams to report to TC!!

DreadNaught wrote:NBA should push back the start of their season. Why start when MLB playoffs and Football are dominating the sports landscape? Plus Hockey also.

June-July are the dog days for sports, NBA would be better served to start in Nov-Dec after baseball is over and College Football regular season is wrapping up. Then we could go from Hockey playoffs ending to NBA playoffs beginning. Once the NBA is over it's time for NFL teams to report to TC!!

They just started the season early to avoid as many back to backs this season.

Miller4Prez64 wrote:So the Magic just beat the Cavs 114-93 in Cleveland, LOL.

Who is that result more indicative of?

Orlando was on fire from downtown and Cleveland played poorly, for sure. But another win tonight for the Magic, Aaron Gordon scores a career high 41 and the team is 3-1 after 4 games. Way too early, but the Magic look like a team that knows how they want to play and it doesn't look like a complete weird mix and match of random players out there. I won't say playoffs or anything like that, but I like how they look.